2001 Readers' Choice Awards

See how your preferences compare with the rest of LJ's intrepid readers, all of whom are highly attractive.

Sorting through the results of the 2001
Readers' Choice Awards, ballots gathered from six weeks of on-line
voting, it's clear that Linux Journal readers
have opinions on everything—lots of opinions. Also evident is the
fact that more options, tools and methods exist now than ever
before; a good thing to keep in mind during a year so turbulent.

This year over 6,500 readers voted in 24 categories, from
favorite Linux book and office suite, to favorite communications
board and backup utility. Thank you to everyone who participated.
Now, on to the results.

Favorite Distribution

1. Red Hat 2. Debian 3. Mandrake

Red Hat received 30% of the votes this year, repeating their
victory from last year. Debian moved from fourth to second place
this year, and Mandrake stayed at third. Linux from Scratch and the
Polish Linux Distribution (PLD) were the most popular
write-ins.

Favorite Graphics Program

1. The GIMP 2. xv/xview 3. CorelDRAW

The winner here is what you would expect; the GIMP received
77% of the total votes. xFig and Photoshop were the favorites among
write-in votes, with pleas for a Photoshop port abundant.

Favorite Word Processor

1. StarOffice 2. AbiWord 3. Kword

StarOffice wins this category for the second consecutive
year. Its nearest competitor, AbiWord, received half as many votes,
and the spread between it, KWord and Emacs was only 19 votes.
Though not really a word processor, LaTeX was the favorite
write-in.

Favorite Text Editor

1. vim 2. vi (and clones) 3. GNU Emacs

We took your advice from last year and split vi and vim into
separate categories. This time around vim wins with twice as many
votes. mcedit took the write-in
vote.

Favorite Desktop Environment

1. KDE 2. GNOME 3. Window Maker

This was one of the most popular categories, and KDE is the
clear winner, receiving 40% of all votes. GNOME came in second with
24.5%, and the favorite write-in was xfcr. And special mention, of
course, for the command line.

Favorite Office Suite

1. StarOffice 2. KOffice 3. WordPerfect

StarOffice is your favorite word processor and your favorite
office suite this year, same as in 2000. KOffice finished a strong
second this year, after a small showing last year. And, the
write-in opinions want everyone to check out Open Office.

Favorite Programming Language

1. C 2. Perl 3. C++

Here's another category where we took your advice from last
year and split C/C++ into separate categories because, hey, they're
not the same. Java and PHP finish out the top five, with Python
just missing out by 15 votes. Kylix/Object Pascal had a strong
write-in showing, over 200 votes.

Favorite Development Tool

1. GCC 2. Emacs 3. KDevelop

GCC took first place again this year, but by a percentage
significantly lower than last year. Emacs continues to prove its
flexibility here, too. Last year's popular write-in, KDevelop, took
third place this year, while Borland's Kylix made another strong
write-in showing.

Favorite Shell

1. bash 2. tcsh 3. ksh

Eighty-one percent of all voters chose bash as their favorite
shell, with tcsh coming in a distant second.
ksh came in third, but only by
receiving five more votes than fourth-place zsh.

Favorite Processor Architecture

1. AMD Athlon 2. Intel Pentium 3. PowerPC

Readers' favorite processor is the AMD Athlon, tallying 42%
of the votes. AMD's Duron, K6-II and Celeron were popular
write-ins. Quite a few votes commented that their selection of
Pentium was out of necessity, not performance.

Favorite Communications Board

1. Cyclades 2. Digi International 3. Equinox

This one received the fewest total number of votes and,
judging from some of the comments, it's because not everyone knows
what we're talking about. Well, it's not a surfboard and it's not a
bulletin board. Of those who did get our meaning, Cyclades is the
favorite.

IE? Not to point out the obvious, but it is a resource pig, is slow as molasses, and can't render CSS1 properly, try developing a standards compliant website some time and see how much extra adjusting you need to do to make it work in IE.

A young man identifying himself with Readers' Choice, called me a few minutes ago and when I refused to give him information, he said, "You are a freak." He then hung up. I suspect that your company is in bad need of solicitors......and needs to inform your solicitors that they are not needed when they leave a "victim" of solicitation with a bad reflection on your company!!!!

Motif? Last time I used Motif, or rather, last time I installed any motif looking application on linux I was using linux kernel 2.0.18 ... Now I'm using Netscape Communicator, StarOffice, and more... I'm using Kernel 2.4.9, and as another poster mentioned, I too am all for big companies will to tout Linux and Open Source, even if I don't necessarily agree with "Big Blue" or the corporate idealogy.

Don't force me to use a specific product, and I won't complain. Rub my back, and maybe, just maybe, I'll rub yours...

Linux isn't for geeks anymore, and most of the computer geeks I know have every Gnome/GTK and KDE application for linux installed on their systems... for the sheer fun of being able to say "yah so? I have that and more working and running fine on Linux, what's your point?"

StarOffice & Netscape are for people who actually use more than an old 386 box, which is most people, therefore the most votes. And I support IBM's enthusiasm for the Linux community. I'm not wild about their prices, but the attention of companies looking to develop Linux apps is welcome in my book.

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